Gently took his tea in Glove Street, still without having returned to Headquarters. The cafe was a comfortable little haven, as useful for thinking as for eating. With a paper folded beside him he sat quietly puffing his pipe; a second pot of tea had been served him, and over the radio they were droning the cricket scores.
In all, he’d met four of the Palette Group members, without including their lively chairman. There’d been the youngster, Watts, and the melancholy Wimbush, Seymour, a still-life painter, and Aymas the Ploughman.
He hadn’t asked them very much, nor seemed too interested in them; he didn’t have the cards in his hand to make a strict interrogation profitable. His principal target had been Aymas, on account of his car, but also because he found him the most original character. And:
‘The dead woman, I believe, was a special friend of yours?’
Aymas’s ruddy complexion had deepened and his brown eyes became more indignant. He was a little over thirty and of a sturdy, large-framed build. He had a handsome if belligerent face and a romantic shock of thick dark hair.
‘But don’t you run away with the idea…!’
His hard, loud voice carried the stamp of the broad acres. It rose and fell in country cadences, it was sudden and pungent in driving home a point. Gently had asked him where his car had been parked, and Aymas, triumphantly, had told him that it was in Chapel Street.
‘Your slops must have sat there looking at it all the evening — if they’d come out in a hurry, it’d have sent them arse over tip!’
All the same, Chapel Street wasn’t as remote as was the Haymarket — remembering the footway, in fact, it wasn’t remote at all. Of the others only Seymour had had something direct to be asked him: he was one of those who admitted to leaving the cellar before Mrs Johnson.
But it was Mallows himself who had most strongly aroused Gently’s interest, sufficiently so to make him want to sit pondering the man. Just now and then one met somebody who stirred one fundamentally — colourful, tantalizing, challenging one to comprehend them. How much lay behind it, that gracefully worn lionskin? What batteries of private emotion lit the facade of public utterance? Mallows had held something back, of this Gently was certain: the academician suspected something which he didn’t intend to communicate.
Gently remembered Stephens’s hypothesis and his lips parted in a smile. The laugh would be on him if his protege had made a lucky guess! And perhaps it wasn’t so far out either, that diagnosis of blackmail. Mallows would have a lot to lose if his public character were assailed…
So absent-minded did Gently become that in going out he forgot his change. A smiling manageress recalled him, and he was not displeased to find that she knew his name.
He made his way across the marketplace, where pigeons were running among the closed-up stalls. The George III, a building coeval with its name, lifted a picturesque face above the brightly coloured tilts. It was tall and narrow and irregularly built, with handsome bow windows on its jutting first storey. The plasterwork had been painted a smooth pale grey, while the windows and elegant ironwork were a complementing shade of green. It stood on a slope and had a towering appearance, and behind it, softly baroque, brooded the majestic bulk of St Peter’s church.
In the bar, a few of the stallholders had gathered for a pint and they stared at Gently for a moment as he came up to the counter. The publican, a short man with a finely clipped moustache, wore a tight black waistcoat and was serving in his shirt sleeves.
‘Superintendent Gently… can I have a word in private?’
The publican winced as though Gently had used a rude word.
‘You can see I’m busy, can’t you…?’
‘I shan’t keep you for long.’
‘I’ve heard those tales before! Besides, what else do you want to know?’
But he put his head round the corner, where he shouted something unintelligible, and after a short delay a barmaid appeared. She had a sulky expression and was still smoothing her hair; the publican, after muttering to her, led Gently into the back parlour.
‘It plays hell with my reputation, having policemen keep coming here. You’d think, from the way they do it, that she was knocked off in my cellar!’
‘That’s something that I want to see, by the way.’
‘Why didn’t you say so in the first place? We can talk there as well as here.’
The entrance to the cellar was from behind the bar counter, where a divided door gave access to a landing and a steep flight of steps. There was no need to switch on a light since the room below was lit by grating windows; in fact, apart from the staircase, it bore little resemblance to anything cellar-like. The walls were painted in green and cream and the floor was covered with a patterned lino. To the left, with a screen of dusty twigs, was a hearth and fireplace of mottled tiles. An old piano stood over in the corner and on the wall hung a fraying dart board; the floor was furnished with a few marble-top tables, but a number of chairs stood stacked under a window.
‘We call it a cellar, but it’s just another room. On account of it’s awkward to get at, we don’t bother with it as a rule. Then a party comes along and wants to have somewhere on their own… there’s a door into the alley, up that other flight of stairs.’
Gently nodded an absent response and took a few steps about the room. It was a prosaic enough place, that, for painters to hold their meeting in! The green-and-cream decor gave it a frigid, canteen atmosphere, while the carelessly stacked chairs were suggestive of a store. And in the winter, it couldn’t have been too well lighted for the viewing of pictures…
‘Can you hear what’s going on when they’re having a meeting down here?’
‘Not unless the door’s open, and we mostly keep it shut. They have so many rows that it disturbs the regular custom — when they want a round of drinks, they come up and knock on the door.’
‘But you can hear when they’re having a row?’
‘Blimey, yes! You can hear them all right.’ The publican made an expressive snatching motion with his head. ‘But you can’t really hear what they’re saying, not unless you open the top and listen. It’s just a grumbling sound, you get me? Like someone had stirred up a nest of hornets.’
‘Was that how it was on Monday night?’
‘That’s how it was, and a blessed sight worse. You wouldn’t believe how they carry on — and they don’t drink enough to be anything but sober.’
Gently pulled down a chair and reversed it for himself — not, like Johnson, to bring him luck, but because he preferred to lean on the back. From up the stairs one could hear the faint squeaking of the beer engine, but of the conversation in the bar not even a murmur filtered through.
‘You say that it was worse on Monday night?’
‘A blessed sight worse, that’s what I said.’
The publican also pulled down a chair and, rather awkwardly, emulated Gently.
‘Mind you, it started off quietly enough — rather surprised me, it did, at first. As a rule they’re pretty well warmed up by eight, which is just about the time when the regulars come in. But last Monday — no; they were like a lot of lambs. They must be mending their ways, I think. Of course, there was a grumble or two now and then, but that wasn’t anything to what we’re used to.’
‘How long did it last?’
‘The best part of the evening. There was a darts match in the bar between us and the Bunch of Grapes. Well, they were just coming up to the final throw-off when we heard them letting fly down here in the cellar.’
‘What time would that be?’
‘Oh, well after nine. We’d had the news on the wireless and then turned it off again. It was just after I’d handed down another tray of drinks — I hadn’t hardly latched the door up when they was at it, hammer and tongs.’
‘Who was making all the noise?’
‘There you are, I wouldn’t know. But that bloke they call Aymas was bawling as loud as any. Then Mrs Johnson’s voice, I heard that once or twice, and I could hear Mr Mallows as though he were trying to quieten them down.’
‘How long did it go on?’
‘Up to closing, or thereabouts. Spoiled the darts match it did, they couldn’t concentrate through that. We switched the wireless on again, turning it up to kill the noise, but every time the music stopped you could hear them rumbling away.’
Gently rocked his chair thoughtfully — this was a slightly different picture! Mallows had definitely tried to give him an impression of something more pacific. It was lively, he’d admitted, but no more so than other meetings. Nothing out of the way had happened — nothing for Gently to poke his nose into…
‘Who else was serving in the bar?’
‘Dolly, of course. And she’s my stepdaughter.’
‘She heard what was going on down here?’
‘The whole bar heard it — even the deaf ones.’
‘I’d like to speak to her, if you’ll send her down.’
Dolly was a buxom-figured redhead and she had a pretty, dimpled face. She came down carrying a glass of beer to which no doubt she had just been treated. Gently motioned to the other chair. She sat down, carefully smoothing her skirt.
‘You knew Mrs Johnson, did you, Dolly?’
She nodded and sipped at her glass of beer.
‘Did you ever have occasion to speak to her?’
‘Of course I did. I knew the lot of them.’
‘What did you think of her, as a person?’
‘I dunno… she was queer, in a way. Sometimes she made a lot of fuss of me, other times I was so much dirt.’
‘Did you ever meet her outside the pub?’
‘Not to speak to nor nothing like that. She’d give me a smile if we met in the street… but only when she hadn’t got anyone with her.’
‘What sort of people did she use to have with her?’
‘Oh, that lot mostly, one or another of them. She liked Mr Mallows and the dark boy, Aymas, but they all put it on for her — I’m sure I don’t know why.’
‘Did you see her with Mr Allstanley?’
‘You mean the one who’s going bald? I can’t say I remember that… but then, I didn’t see everything, did I? He’s one of them who lives out, so you don’t see much of him in the pub. But the rest of them often drop in. There’s a couple sitting up there now.’
‘Was there anyone she was especially… fond of?’
Dolly took a thoughtful sip at her beer. ‘No… not unless it was Stephen Aymas, and she was pally enough with him. I used to think she had a weak spot for money… Mr Mallows, and the one who works at the bank. But Stephen, he only works on a farm, so it couldn’t have been money in his case, could it?’
She gazed up at Gently with naive hazel eyes, appealingly unaware of his being anyone out of the ordinary. Her make-up was heavy and clumsily applied; as though it were a ritual which she accepted rather as a duty.
‘You didn’t chance to meet her husband, I suppose?’
‘Oh yes, but I did.’ Dolly nodded her head at him assuringly. ‘And I’ll tell you something about him. He was as jealous as could be. I know for a fact that he used to follow her in the street.’
‘You’ve seen him do that?’
‘Yes, I have — and another thing. He once came into the bar when they were having a meeting down here. He had a pint and hung around, trying to see down the hatch, then he asked me right out if Mrs Johnson was at the meeting.’
‘How did you know who he was?’
‘I told you, I’d met him before. My uncle runs the bar at the golf club and I’ve been up there to lend a hand. I particularly noticed Mr Johnson — he’s got a way with him, you know. Then there’s that silly moustache of his, and the way he likes to turn his chair round.’
‘This following her in the street! How did you come to notice that?’
‘I saw him do it from my window. You can see all the Walk from up in my bedroom, and I just happened to notice her, along with Mr Mallows. Then I saw Mr Johnson. He followed them right up the Walk.’
‘When do you say this was?’
‘I dunno… round about Whitsun.’
‘And what about the other?’
‘Oh, that was at the meeting last month. He came in here just after it started, and stayed leaning on the bar for a good half-hour. He bought a packet of Players — I remember that especially. It was the last packet, you see, so I had to fetch some more from the store…’
‘Did you see him again that evening?’
‘No. He hasn’t been here since.’
When he remembered how nearly he had missed interviewing these people, Gently couldn’t help feeling alarmed with himself. It had been touch and go whether he had visited the pub, or had trusted to Hansom’s usually efficient researches. Now, it became clear, the Chief Inspector had scamped this angle, for if Dolly’s statement had been in his files the Yard would scarcely have been called at all…
‘Coming to that meeting on Monday!’
He almost made Dolly jump. She had been nursing her beer glass between her knees, causing the contents to rotate. ‘I’d like you to tell me everything you can remember about it — even the little things which don’t seem to matter.’
‘There isn’t much to tell, really…’
‘Never mind. Do your best. Let’s have it from the time when the bar opened after tea.’
Dolly nodded and sought inspiration in a sip of beer. ‘Well, I’m not in the bar when it opens, not as a rule. For the first hour it’s quiet enough, just the men off the market. I did slip in for some fags and stop a moment to have a word with them — they were talking about the new winger, the one the City has bought from Newcastle.
‘Then I went back to my bedroom to do a bit of mending — you’d be surprised how I bust the straps off my things! — and out of the window I saw one or two of them arrive — the artist lot, I mean; Mr Mallows and some of the others.
‘It’s easy to pick them out because they’re all carrying pictures, all except Mr Allstanley, who does funny things with wire. And of course, Mr Mallows — he never brings anything. But then, he’s rather different from the rest of them, isn’t he?’
‘Did you see Mrs Johnson?’
‘Yes, I’m going to tell you. She always gets off her bus near Lyons. Stephen Aymas went to meet her — he always does that, then sometimes they have a glass in the bar before the meeting.’
‘Did they do that on Monday?’
‘N-no, I think they went straight down, and it struck me that Mrs Johnson was looking a bit peevish. I watched them across the marketplace, with Stephen chattering away to her; but she hardly said a word to him, and when she did, he seemed put out by it. Something’s upset her, I said to myself, and I remember thinking it might have been her husband. Anyway, poor Stephen was getting the edge of it, and that’s maybe what made him so angry later.
‘Well, I went down into the bar after that — we’d got a darts team coming, and I like to watch a darts match. Now and then there was a knock on the shutter for drinks, but I soon got rid of them and latched up the door again.’
‘Did you catch anything of what was going on down here?’
Dolly stared for an instant at her revolving beer. ‘They were going on about Mr Wimbush, how he’d used the wrong colours. It’s always something like that — they never seem to do anything right! If I painted any pictures I wouldn’t show them to that lot…’
‘Could you hear Mrs Johnson?’
‘Oh yes, she was at it. Though I can’t remember anything she said, not particular. But I thought the same thing — she was upset about something; she sounded spiteful, you know, as though she wanted to take it out of someone.’
‘How many times did they knock for drinks?’
‘Two… three times, I think it was.’
‘And each time you served them you could hear Mrs Johnson?’
‘Yes, I told you… and later on! That was the time when the big row started — half past nine, as near as makes no difference. Me, I was washing up a few of the glasses, and Father was having a Guinness along with Bob Samson. It went off sudden, if you know what I mean. They’d been right quiet just a minute before. Then I heard Stephen Aymas shout something out, angry-like, and before you could say it they were all carrying on.’
‘What was it that Aymas shouted?’
‘That I can’t tell you. I was listening to what father was telling Bob Samson. But later on I heard him bawling that somebody wasn’t genuine, and then that they were a liar and hadn’t ever told the truth.’
‘Who do you think he was referring to?’
‘Why, Mrs Johnson, of course. You could hear her shouting back at him, though naturally, not so loud.’
‘And did you hear what she said?’
‘No, but she sounded more spiteful than ever. You can lay your hand to your heart that she was the one who set it off. Well, then father switched on the wireless and turned it up as high as it would go — Edmundo Ros, it was, and Victor Silvester after that. The boys went on with their darts match, though it was putting them off a bit… they’re a useful lot from the Grapes, they went a long way in the Shield…’
‘Did you hear anything else that was said?’
Dolly shook her head. ‘There wasn’t much chance. And by the time we’d hung the cloth up, they’d managed to cool themselves off a bit. I went down after their glasses. She’d gone by then, had Mrs Johnson. Those that were left were still muttering to each other, but they dried up when they saw me.
‘I asked them what all the fuss was about — like I told you, I know them pretty well; but they shrugged and put me off, said I wouldn’t understand it anyway.’
‘Was Aymas still in the cellar then?’
‘He was leaving just as I was going down.’
‘You couldn’t give me the time, precisely?’
‘Near enough twenty to eleven, I should think.’
Which was almost exactly on cue, if Aymas intended to follow Mrs Johnson — though whether the moment was propitious for offering lifts was a point which a good defence counsel would snatch at. But then, such an offer might not have come into it. The idea of that lift was still hypothetical. And in the meantime a case was slowly tightening around Johnson: they could now show some motive and the appearance of a prior plan.
‘In the morning I’d like you to come along and sign a statement.’
‘To the police station, you mean?’ Dolly looked a little concerned. To have a chat over a beer in the cellar of the George was, apparently, poles apart from the same thing at HQ. Gently grinned at her consternation:
‘I give you my promise not to eat you…’
Still, she looked as though she thought that she might have been mistaken in him.
The bar, when he returned upstairs, had several more customers in it, and the radio over the cigarette display was playing a Grieg dance. A game of darts had begun, played with private sets of darts: it was plain that the sport was taken seriously by the George III patrons.
The publican touched his arm: ‘There’s three of the playmates over there…’
He motioned with his head towards a table near the door, at which was sitting Phillip Watts in the company of two older men. One of them, from Mallows’s description, Gently recognized to be Baxter, and the other, by his smart appearance, he guessed was the bank manager, Farrer. As he studied them Watts looked up, and his eyes encountered Gently’s; after a word to his two companions he rose and signalled to the detective.
‘Can I offer you a drink, sir…?’
Gently went over to them, shaking his head.
‘If I may, sir, I’d like to introduce you… I’ve just been telling them about this afternoon.’
They were, as Gently had supposed, the man from the bank and the poster painter, and it soon transpired that they had a grievance to air. Both their cars had been impounded by the machinations of Stephens; Baxter, who lived far off the bus routes, was particularly biting in his complaints.
‘I assume that the police do have these powers, but all the same, given a modicum of low-grade intelligence…’
He was just as Mallows had limned him, with a small, bony head and greying hair; he spoke in a dry and scratchy manner and wore steel-rimmed glasses over deprecating eyes. The pipe that he ‘whiffed’ at, giving successive little puffs, had a flat round bowl and a spindly stem.
‘I suppose it’s what you’d call routine, Superintendent…?’
Gently found himself taking a little better to Farrer. He was a good-looking man of not more than forty-five, and though his smile was probably professional, he was at least making use of it.
‘You realize that we are obliged to do these things.’
‘Of course, Superintendent. But you can’t expect us to like them.’
‘I could probably arrange some transport for you gentlemen.’
‘No, no, don’t bother. We’ll see it out now.’
He took the opportunity of asking where they had parked their cars on the Monday, though Farrer’s, he knew already, had been on the Haymarket. Baxter’s, it appeared, had been there also, and after a moment or two’s thought Farrer was able to confirm this.
‘Do either of you remember where Allstanley put his?’
Farrer pulled himself up short, but Baxter was not so discreet:
‘Allstanley comes from Walford — he’d have to come in along St Saviour’s.’ And he whiffed with his pipe stuck out at a defiant angle.
But when it came to the meeting itself there was a conspiracy of silence. A curious sort of uncomfortableness seemed to descend on all three of them. It was as though they felt ashamed of the scene which had taken place, and had tacitly agreed to forget all about it.
‘I think I ought to tell you that this is important! I am already aware that Aymas quarrelled with the deceased…’
Farrer admitted that the two of them had disagreed about a picture, but at the same time insinuated that it could hardly be called a quarrel.
‘Yet they were shouting at each other?’
‘Aymas’s voice is naturally loud.’
‘Didn’t he call the deceased a liar?’
‘He’s called me one, too, before now.’
Baxter flatly observed that Aymas was ‘naturally choleric ’, but permitted nothing else to escape past his pipe. As for Watts, he could take a tip from his elders and betters; he simply chimed in assentingly to whatever the others said…
The encounter was broken up by the appearance of Stephens, who had apparently come out looking for his errant senior. The young Inspector had a gleam of excitement in his eye, and it was easy to divine that he was fraught with red-hot information.
‘Could you come back to Headquarters, sir?’
Gently grunted and rose, nodding his conge to the three painters. Since it was too much to expect that Stephens could keep his news till they had returned, Gently took care to steer him the least-frequented way thither.
‘What’s it about — did you find something in one of the cars?’
‘Yes, sir, that is to say, no sir. But I’ve found something else! You remember that there was a chummie called Aymas, sir?’
‘Aymas!’ Gently couldn’t keep the interest out of his voice.
‘Yes, sir, Aymas. One of those who had a car. Well, he hasn’t got it now, sir — he sold it to a firm of breakers. And he sold it on the Tuesday morning, right bang after the murder!’
Gently gave a soft whistle. ‘Have you managed to get hold of it?’
‘That’s the devil of it, sir. The breakers have gone and broken it up. But I’ve got a man over there, and they’re trying to identify the parts, and in the meantime I’ve taken the liberty of pulling in Aymas for questioning.’
And there was another trifling matter, one which Stephens had almost forgotten. He remembered it only as he was whisking up the steps to HQ:
‘Oh, and someone rang you, sir — a person by the name of Butters. He wouldn’t state his business to me, and he wants you to ring him back.’